Google is holding an event in Berlin tomorrow to explain their Digital News Initiative and the Innovation Fund that is part of that. I am going – are there any questions hyperlocal web people would like me to raise with Google? About anything really. In the comments on twitter to @willperrin or email william@talkaboutlocal.org I’ll blog to sum up and maybe tweet some interesting bits during the day. I’ve pasted the agenda in below, no I won’t be Instagramming the food.
The Innovation Fund is a well-designed scheme that should appeal to hyperlocals – there is a £50k entry tier, your project needs to be innovative (obviously), therefore not running at full whack already (maybe it’s a prototype), and to be genuinely ‘news’ focussed ie not just republishing stuff or listings. If you get shortlisted there is an interview. I haven’t waded through the entry form yet, but the overall mood music seems much more clean and straightforward than some of the other schemes we have seen for innovation in recent years (looking at you TSB..)
‘The ambition and intent of the Fund is bold: to spark new thinking, which could come from anywhere in the news ecosystem, to give news organisations – of all sizes – the space to try some new things. We’ve set aside up to €150 million for that purpose, which we’ll make available in the form of no-strings-attached awards over the next three years.’
and there’s FAQs here
Agenda for Berlin briefing day
9:15 Breakfast
10:00 Welcome
Digital News Initiative Update
10:15 Morning sessions
Google’s product vision for news
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Adblocking – Working together on a solution
Trust Project update
11:40 Mid-morning sessions
YouTube and News Publishers
Introducing the Google News Lab: Search, Trends and Experiments
DNI Innovation Fund
Reuters Institute Digital News Report: Media disruption in Europe – opportunities and threats
13:00 Lunch break
13:45 Interactive breakout sessions
Open discussion with your executive-level colleagues and Googlers in focused sessions. Everyone will be able to attend each session.
- AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages
- Working on adblocking together
- YouTube and News Publishers
- Monetisation insights
17:00 Wrap-up
William Perrin
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